Functionality
by Sarah the Boring
Summary: A small collection of fanfic poetry, which will hopefully be increased someday. Two are Dias/Chisato, so purists beware. :)


**Functionality - the continued SO2 poems**  
by Sarah the Boring

Star Ocean: The Second Story, names, characters, et cetera copyright Enix Corporation. These poems are the property of the author.

_Notes: To spare people having to jump around to various places to read these short pieces, I've decided to compile them into one entry. They don't necessarily relate. Notes for all follow the last poem._

I hope you enjoy them. Thanks. - StB

Spoiler warnings, by the way. Also some unorthodox couples - but that's nothing new for this game. ;)

  


Contents:  
1 - "The First Winter"  
2 - "Small Stories"  
3 - "Catharsis"

  
  


**"The First Winter"**

The first winter folds around them,  
each apart from each.  
Heavy feet in heavy shoes crack the crust  
on some godforsaken slope.  
Slitted eyes seek the sky.  
Lovers, lying safe, draw close and shiver.  
Their thoughts spin outward  
toward the lost.

Some think of home,  
longingly, of earth crumbling in the hand,  
seethingly, of the smashed machinery of millennia.  
Consciousness glides on feathered wings,  
between, among, around,  
mourning and cold.

The question burns coldly in the minds  
of one, another, all:  
_So many lost, so many,  
yet so many saved...  
what was each worth?_

In space the stars are frozen,  
each apart from each.

  
  


**"Small Stories"**

The room is unfamiliar,  
the same as all the rest.  
Golden light drowns the eastern wall,  
giving up the rest to shadows.  
He is standing by the window  
when his soul flies out to the balcony.  
He stops,  
closes the lamp's cover,  
hides a contained flame.

She perches on a chair on the balcony below,  
knees crossed, one foot dangling into space.  
Her notebook lies open,  
capturing the ink that spreads across it.  
Her pen pours out a story that he cannot read.  
At this distance, only generalities project.  
The windowsill frames her,  
printed too brightly against the background:  
black and white, red and blue,  
the glow of her skin in the sunset,  
its light melting into liquid fire  
against her hair, orange and red.

There is a nobility in the simplicity,  
the near-cliches, the archetypes—  
she writes, because that is what she does.  
And he watches, forbidding himself to wish  
that he knew what the pages know.  
His memory retells small stories:  
_once we met, once we spoke,  
on an evening like this.  
And I felt alive._

She unfolds, returns to her room.  
The lamp is blown out as darkness falls.  
He knows how it goes from here.  
This is the end; prepare for the epilogue,  
the slow retreat from everything.

A knock. He turns,  
opens the door; she moves past him.  
In her arms is a notebook.  
Chapter two.

  
  


**"Catharsis"**

The light is low, blurring the edges  
of a still figure in a window seat.  
Carven, ephemeral, solitary,  
he moves his hands again  
across white paper bought on stolen time.  
His mind circles:  
_This soul's too cold,  
these hands, too rough..._  
But the charcoal cleaves the habitual lies.  
The shadows bleed onto whiteness,  
are pushed back, return again a shade lighter,  
and their fading darkness balances  
the failing light.  
Gray poses as steel-silver and red,  
leaf-green,  
night-blue.  
He stands, finished; the fire is out.  
Once again he is reclaimed by the cold.  
The paper flutters to the hearth  
and a forest slowly smolders into dust.

  
  
  


_Notes_

1 - "The First Winter" - This piece is, in a way, a coda to the set of poems I wrote some time ago, "Sacred Songs". Spurred by the remixed version of the SO2 closing theme "We Form In Crystals", this is just a series of images after the events of the game. Chilly and sad, like the song, I suppose.

2 - "Small Stories" - Probably my least favorite among them, though it _was_ acceptable enough to post here. ^_~ Written after "Catharsis", below, it leads into that poem while hinting at previous events. I've kicked around the idea of a second set of poems, each featuring one of the talents; "Small Stories" is Authoring/Publishing, and "Catharsis" is Art. That project isn't finished, though it's still on the slate of things to do. :) And in case you missed the intro, yes, those are Dias and Chisato. It makes very slightly more sense in the next poem, and would make more sense yet in the full set.

3 - "Catharsis" - Inspired in large part by a fanart at SO Chronicles, connecting Dias and the Art skill. I like it well enough... not much else to say.

Thanks for reading!


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